Muskogee (southeast U.S.)

Each town had a hearth with a fire burning that represented the entire community and the people's connection to their ancestors and the Maker of Breath [the highest god].

This particular fire was most sacred, but it could become polluted. Acts of violence, the misuse of spiritual power, the mistreatment of game, violations of taboos concerning sex, and the unsanctioned consumption of the newly ripened or "green" corn symbolically polluted fire.

A pure fire enabled the people to communicate their wants to the Maker of Breath, the purifying power that rebalanced the cosmos. In contrast, a polluted fire could not connect the people to the Maker of Breath.

Over the course of a year, as the people's fire became tainted, its power eroded and needed renewal. The proper context for this vital renewal was provided by the Busk [the most important annual ceremony].

Joel Martin, Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), 36-37.
to "Native American Religion"

Catawba (southeast U.S.)

[A] death in the Nation triggered an elaborate ritual that involved fasting, wakefulness, a taboo on speaking the name of the deceased, and blowing ashes on the dead person to appease the spirit. If the spirit was satisfied, it would return after three days to drink from a pot of water placed at the head of the corpse; rippling water in the pot signaled that the deceased would not trouble the living."

James Merrell, The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 264-265.
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Iroquois (upper New York)

The connection between war and mourning rested on beliefs about the spiritual power that animated all things.  Because an individual's death diminished the collective power of a lineage, clan, and village, Iroquois families conducted "Requickening" ceremonies in which the deceased's name, and with it the social role and duties it represented, was transferred to a successor. . . . In Requickenings, people of high status were usually replaced from within the lineage, clan, or village, but at some point lower in the social scale an external source of surrogates inevitably became necessary.  Here warfare made its contribution, for those adopted "to help strengthen the familye in lew of their deceased Freind" were often captives taken in battle. . . .

But if the grief of the bereaved remained unassuaged, women of the mourning household could demand the ultimate socially sanctioned release for their violent impulses: a raid to seek captives, who, it was hoped, would ease their pain. . . . Such large-scale campaigns seem frequently to have culminated in carefully planned, relatively bloodless, largely ceremonial confrontations between massed forces protected by wooden body armor and bedecked in elaborate headdresses. . . . When the victors returned home, village leaders apportioned the prisoners to grieving lineages, whose elder women then chose either to adopt or to execute them.

Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 32-33, 35.
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Iroquois (northeast U.S.)

[In the Iroquois theogony] there seem to have been three classes of supernatural phenomena: spirits, ghosts of the dead, and the gods. In addition there was a Great Spirit, together with his satanic counterpart.

At a man's death, his spirit departed for the afterlife--not for some "happy hunting ground," which was the White conception of the Indian afterworld. (An Iroquois did not believe he ate food after death and therefore he had no reason to hunt.) The dead man's ghost maintained an interest in the tribe. Special wintertime feasts were held for the ghosts, who were thought to participate unseen in the dancing and the games; they also accompanied raiding parties, even though they could only watch and not fight.

Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State (New York: Dutton, 1968), 107.
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Zuni (southwest U.S.)

The solidarity of Zuni culture, obvious even to the casual observer, is due to the interlocking relationships of clan and religious societies. . . . Many loyalties serve to integrate the entire village by linking people in all directions: A person might belong to household A, kinship B, clan C, society D, kiva E, priesthood F, and so on. Nearly every Zuni in an entire village is linked in some sort of formalized relationship with his fellow citizens. . . .

In Zuni, the poor man is the one who lacks a place in the religious rituals or who does not own ceremonial property. Wealth among the Zuni is equated with ceremonial activities: Only the wealthy man has the time and resources to participate to the fullest in religious ceremonies.

Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State (New York: Dutton, 1968), 83, 85, 86.
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Natchez (Mississippi)

The chief of the Natchez [was] known as the Great Sun, . . . He was carried about on a litter moved at a fast pace by relays of eight men who, without breaking step, passed it from one team to another. . . .

The cult of the sun represented the official religion of the chiefdom. . . . Its theology was quite complex, but it was based on a supreme deity who lived in the sky and was closely connected with the sun (he may indeed have been identical with it, but the early French reports are confused on this point).

The Natchez believed that in the distant past the son of this deity had descended to earth and brought civilization to them as his own chosen people giving them those laws, customs, ceremonies, and arts that made them powerful over their neighbors. Then this deity had retired into a stone that was ever afterward preserved in the principal temple; . . .

Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State (New York: Dutton, 1968), 155, 157-158.
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September 2000
nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/divam.htm